If your kids didn’t inherit your same passion and excitement for exercise, don’t fret! There are ways to get them excited and eager to exercise and generally be more active—it just might take some creativity! But we’re here to help. In today’s post, we’re sharing exercise ideas your whole family will love to get everyone on board with being more active.
Turn it into a game
If you tell your kids it’s time to exercise, they might not be incredibly eager to join you. However, if you tell them it’s time to play a game, this can be a lot more enticing to them.
There are several different ways to turn exercise into a game, but here’s one of our favorites to get you started. It’s called the Deck of Cards workout and not only is it fun, but it’s also easy to do! With this game, you let the suit determine the exercise your family does and the number determine the reps during this workout. For example, if hearts mean squats and you pull an eight of hearts, that means everyone needs to do eight squats.
Walks with a twist
Plan a walk with the family, but tell everyone this isn’t just any walk they’re going on. During the walk, each family member can be challenged to find as many red cars as possible, for example. Each family member can keep track as they go and you can compare results when you’re home. For older kids, you could also challenge each family member to identify as many plant species as possible.
Another way to make walks more fun is involving pets! If you don’t have one of your own or you’re not ready to commit to adopting one, there are still ways to do this. Check with friends or family members who have pets and see if they would let your family borrow their dog for a walk. Another option is looking into local animal shelters that have dog walking programs to help exercise their shelter pets.
Clean up game
We love exercise ideas that are not only fun, but also productive. For example, your family can visit a local park and make it a challenge to see who can pick up the most pieces of trash within a 20-minute period. You can also give this same activity a try at home and see who can pick up the most toys or items around the home in a certain amount of time.
Phone number workout
Finally, we come to the phone number workout. This EMOM style workout is sure to get everyone’s blood pumping while also being a lot of fun.
To give it a try, you assign each number from one to ten with a corresponding exercise. For example, the number two could correspond to burpees. Write out the entire phone number with the corresponding exercises, and get your family to join you for this fun workout.
What Are Your Favorite Exercise Ideas?
Now we want to hear from you! What are your favorite exercise ideas for the whole family?